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DELIVERED BEFORE THE MILlTARy Ail f ITIZEM! S 

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ADDRESS 

WM. LEIGH, ESQR., 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE MILITARY AND CITIZEM 

OF 3SJ:-A.Il,TI3SrSBTJI^Gf-, V-A.., 

FEB. 22d., I860. 



Since the death of Washington, it has become a very 
general custom to set apart his birth day as a national 
festival, to be devoted, in part at least, to the study of his 
life and actions and the principles which guided and gov- 
erned them. 

Such, Fellow Citizens, is the purpose for which we are 
DOW assembled. It is a beautiful and touching custom, 
the most striking form in which the gratitude of a Nation 
can clothe itself — acknowledging the conviction, that we 
shall arise from the contemplation of his virtues, as from 
a river of living waters, with patriotism, and all high and 
honorable motives of public and private action, refreshed 
and reinvigorated — founded also, let me hope, in a feeling 
of thankfulness to God, that he should liave raised up 
among our fathers so good, and wise, and great a man, 
to guide them through the trials and perils which beset the 
infancy of this nation. 

George Washington is in many respects — in most per- 
haps — the most wonderful man in history. Porn in a part 
of the colony of Virginia remote from Capital, with no ad^ 
vantages of early education, but such as are to be found in 
the common country schools, at the age when other youths 
are finishing their studies in a college, he is employed as 
a land surveyor, in a district (this country which vre now 
live in) subject to Indian incursion. In this situation his 
pre-eminent tterit seems almost immediately to have been 
recognized. At the age of nineteen he is appointed Ad- 



jutant (jeneral of the Colony — the year following to the 
command of the troops, which the colony was raising for 
the defence of the frontier — a year or two later we find a 
British General then preparing to march against Fort Du- 
quesne, negotiating to secure the services of the young 
Colonel; and Gren'l. Braddock's high appreciation of his 
merit, is fully justified by the distinguished services which 
he afterwards renders, on that disastrous expedition. This 
at the age of twenty^three. If it be alleged that the parti- 
ality of his friends was premature, in placing him at the 
head of the military men that the Colonies had yet pro- 
duced, before that expedition — there can be no doubt 
that after that expedition, he was, and was justly entitled 
to be, so considered throughout America. Here we have 
the brilliant commencement of a career that was indeed to 
be glorious. Yet now that we can take in all the events 
of his life at a glance, we recognize that his qualities were 
rather solid and useful, than showy or biilliant. His 
greatness does not rtst on military ^5kill. nor on the sagacity 
which enabled him to step full fledged into the field of 
diplomacy, but on a combination of qualities that have 
rarely, if ever been united in one man. In him the intui- 
tive insight into men and things, which marks a genius of 
the highest order, is so tempered by reason, judgment and 
high moral sense, that we scarcely recognize it as that 
erratic gift. He presents the noblest example in History, 
of ambition subjected to wisdom and moderation, of 
power subordinated to duty, of patriotism unsullied by 
selfish or grovelling weakness. His noble and majestic 
character, displays few of those meteoric splendors which 
dazzle a generation, but is rather to be likened to a rugged 
mountain peak, towering far above the clouds, whose mas- 
sive and solitary grandeur, shall endure to the end of time. 
In tracing back the course of history it is readily per- 
ceived, that its current has received its direction mainly 
from a few great minds. It is thus apparently that 
Providence shapes the afi'airs of men. A man fitted and 
endowed for the task assigned him appears, and does the 
work. In the earlier periods these men are geneially — 
as Moses, Confucius, Zoroastrc — founders of religious, 
iocial or political systems — later — as Alexander, Ghengis, 
Napoleon — they are destroyers. That Washington was one 



of tliese Providential men there cannot be a doubt, and 
the farther the generations of men recede from him in 
time, the nearer he will approximate to those grand indis- 
tinct figures^ which loom in the traditionary periods as 
heroes, sages, and demi-gods. He had learned the art of 
war under no great chieftan — no wilej politican had 
initiated him into the secrets of state-craft — the learning 
of the schools was not his— whence then the mighty powers 
which he brought to the aid of his country ? they were froni 
On High ! and who can doubt that he was endowed with 
them for a special purpose. If we would rightly under- 
stand what that purpose was, we must go back to the last 
of those great quarrels^ which have rent the Westero 
Church. 

The era of the lieformation is the grandest and most 
imposing in modern history. An age of external war and 
internal strife, when every motive that could intensify the 
passions of men, was present in excess, when every obliga'» 
tion of pliglited faith and moral rectitude, was ruthlessly 
violated in the name of religion — a period of murderous 
battles and disastrous seiges. of plots and intrigues, poison- 
ing, assassination, massacre. Earnest men in those days, 
animated by a faith as pure, a zeal as fiery as ever courted 
or defied martyrdom, struggled in the opposing ranks — 
Luther and Calvin, Loyola and Philip II, and Gustavus 
Adolphus. It was not until the fell spirit aroused in 
this religious controversy was sated with carnage, that 
Europe emerged divided as at present into Catholic and 
Protestant States. Society panting and exhausted, at 
length found leasure to review the crimes committed in the 
name of Religion, and it relapsed into the frivolous skep- 
ticism, and infidel philosophy of the XVIII century. It 
became fashionable to doubt and to disbelieve, to dismiss 
the gravest questions with a witticism or an epigram, to 
sneer at religion and morality as shams. The licencious- 
ness of this, exceeded the military licence and ferocity of 
the former period. Men sated with vice, cooled their 
parched and fevered imaginations, in fanciful visions of 
the unsophisticated purity and simplicity of nature. A 
mawkish sentimentalism bacame the cheap substitute for 
yirtue. 

The class of nobles was originally a national rnilUi^. 



The lan^s privileges aud immunities with which it wa^ 
endowed, was in compensation of services rendered or due 
to the State. In the wars whichfollowed the Reforioation, 
this Feudal militia was disp'aced by the substitution of 
standing armies. The Feudal System thus received it^ 
death blow, but the nobles remained, their privileges intact, 
without any of the correllative obligations on which they 
had cgiually depended. Let me add, that starting from 
the same period the human mind had taken a mighty inw 
pulse; Commerce had spread her golden wings; and Sci- 
ence already soared into those realms of unimaginable 
space, whenge she has brought us so many of the secrets 
of the Universe. 

Thus towards the close of the XVIIT century, an 
infidel philosophy pervades th« upper strata of society, with 
corruption of manners — the middle classes are panting to 
embark in that career of material prosperity which looms 
in the future — the great masses are crushed and ground 
down by intolerable burdens and exactions, which no 
longer have the slightest pretext in reason, or in justice. 
The world is ripe for change. 

It is now that the hand of Providence becomes unrais'* 
takably visible. No trumpet sounds in the Heavens, foK 
lowed by earthquakes, and thunderings, and lightnings, 
^rith a wail of mortal agony, fitful in the shriek of the 
huricane, and the roar of waters — but the meek calm 
yoice of a few feeble colonists, utters a protest ag^'inst 
the prevailing corruption — announces the true soiree of 
human authority — defines the true relation of rulers to the 
governed. The great underlying principles of the Refor^' 
mation are transforred from the domain of Religion, to 
the institution of Political Government. Such was the 
American Revolution ! — child of a mother clothed in the 
Sun, with the Moon under her feet, and a glory of Stars 
around her head — to rescue that child from the great red 
Dragon, and to lay it at the foot of the Throne of Grod — 
such was the task of Washington ! 

It was a beacon of hope to the millions of oppressed — 
the lamp of political regeneration lighted up in the wil- 
derness — to feed its feeblo flame, to shelter it from the rude 
blasts with which the powers of evil were to assail it— such 
was the task of Washington ! 



At the breaking out of tli6 American Revolutioo, 
England flushed with recent triumph over fjes and 
rivals in every quarter of the globe, was by far the most 
powerful nation of the earth. Her monarch was honest 
and upright, lut narrow-minded and big«ted. It may be 
permitted us to doubt, whether he fully comprehended the 
full import of those measures, which precipitated a contest 
of principle. Those principles had taken deep root rmong 
his immediate subjects at home, and ever served to stay 
his arm in the fratricidal struggb that ensued. That gal- 
lant people also of Western Europe, that challenges equally 
ouj gra^titude and our admiration, was brooding the mortifi'» 
cation of tempcrary discomfiture, and biding an opportunity 
to retrieve its faded prestige. The British Monarch havs 
ing brought on the lievolution by a too obstinate adhers 
ence to an ill judged policy, found it necessary to put forth 
the vast military power of his Empire, to preserve the 
integrity of his dominions. By wisdom in conneil, by 
conduct in the field, to guide that Revolution to its trium- 
phant issue — was the task of Washington. His corns 
manding figure stands out from the Revolution — alone amid 
the gloom — radiant with a never dying glory. Surely God 
has never entrusted so beneficent a task to mere man, since 
the days when Moses led his chosen people out of Egypt. 

How nobly his work was done — with what consummate 
sagacity, he utilized the sympathies of mankind, and the 
feeble resources of the infant nation — how he guided it 
through the perilous days of the Revolution, the dreary 
period of the confederation, and led the tottering giant 
through the first eight years of the operation of this gov- 
ernment, is too well known, that I need to dwell upon 
them before an audier:ce of his countrymen. I am chiefly 
solicitous to avoid porrpous insipidities, and hackneyed 
commonplace. But shall I be deemed to infringe this 
rule if I remind you, that the Nation with whose feeble 
infancy his name is forever identified, now stalks the path 
to Empire with a boldness of stride that bewilders the 
world — that the feeble flame which he fed and sheltered 
with parental solicitude, now flares with intolerable blaze 
on oppression and injustice wherever they exist — that Ty* 
rants pale, and thrones and institutions crumble into dust, 
in the fierce intensity of its light. 



It once happened to me, to travel in iv land which is 
traversed by some of the Western ranges of the Andes. 
A timely start had brought our party in the early dawn 
to the summit of a mountain pass. Beyond and below us 
stretched a vast lake of pure white vapour, enclosed as it 
were within a chain of mountain peaks, towering and 
sharply defined in the keen morning air, like the sides of 
a huge caldron. Whether it was a cloud that lay below 
us I know not ; but while we yet gazed, the first rays of the 
rising sua fell upon it, an(t all was instantly violent commo- 
tion. The whole mass seemed in a s^ate of ebullition, it 
raged, and heaved, and surged from side to side, huge vols 
umes rushed impetuously to and fro, conveyins: the idea, 
that had the mighty powers evolved been exerted through a 
more substantial medium, they would have suflBced to overs 
turn the solid mountains from their bases. Slowly it rose — 
it poured over the lower gorges and disappeared, revealing^ 
to us beneath, a lovely valley, dotted with fiocks , and 
herds, and. patches of cultivation, a village in the distance, 
and a silver stream meandering through ihe middle. — 
Such is the figure by which I shall hope to impress you, 
with the mighty effects of that protest which issued from 
the wilds of America — of that pale gleam, which from 
athwart the Atlantic, fell on the abuses and corruptions of 
Europe. The French Revolution, the wars of Napoleon, 
the deposition of monarchs, the crumbling of monarchies, 
the rise and fall of States, the remodeling of laws and 
institutions, succeed each other like the fancies of a dis*» 
tempered imagination, or the phantasmagoria of a fever- 
ish dream. Those effects still continue. Europe is alter- 
nately in the throes of convulsion, or the fires smoulder 
sullenly beneath the surface. Let us trust, that all that is 
just, and wise, and conservative in her institutions, will be 
purified and refined, and that she will re-appear like 
the peaceful valley of the Andes, renovated and disea? 
thralled. 

But Fellow Citizens, we assemble to meditate at the 
tomb of Washington under peculiar and startling circums 
stances. If a momentary enthusiasm kindles in the mems 
cry of his virtues, it is checked by the recollection, that 
this monument of his patriotism, this Government under 
which we have enjoyed such marvellous prosperity, this 



asylum for the oppressed, and beacon to re-anhuate with 
hope the down-trodden millions, is hasf-ening to dissolution. 
The flame which he nurtured so tenderly and which now 
beams with so bright an effulgence, may soon— too soon — 
be quenched foiever. 

1 know that a patriotic movement is on foot for the con- 
servation of the Union, but that movement I firmly be- 
lieve, can at the best, only interpose a short delay to a 
catastrophy woeful as it is inevitcible. They cannot do 
more than revive it to a few years of gainful and languid 
existence. Suspicion and distrust, have already replaced 
the religious and social ties which were its strongest bonds, 
and the two great parties now stand face to face, the one 
haughty, presumptuous, and aggressive, the other stern, 
resolute, and uuyielaing. I know that this is not the first 
strain to which the Union of these States has been ex^ 
posed, and hitherto it has emerged brighter and stronger 
for the trial, — can it thus escape this present strain ! 

Henry Clay the great pacificator on foimer occasions was 
a Southern man — herein was his misfortune. The method 
of his mediation ensured its success, for it was founded 
on the christian principle of giving more than he took — 
heaping measure filled to the brim, and flowing over. 
Now the South startl-ed by threats of subjugation, aroused 
by armed aggression, her soil red with the blood of citizens 
shed in its defence, sternly refuses to yield anything fa^^ 
ther to the spirit of compromise. The North confident in 
her strength, insolent with repeated triumphs, and urged 
on by fanatics and demagogues, is equally obstinate. — 
Gentlemen if Mr. Crittenden or any other man, fancies 
that the mantle has fallen on his shoulders, he is mistaken. 
That garment was wrapped around the mortal remains of 
Henry Clay, and buried in his grave. God hath transferred 
him to a better sphere whence with Webster and with 
Washington, he gazes sorrowfully on the ruin he could 
not avert. 

To those who regard the Harper's Ferry outrage as the 
act merely of John Brown and Gerrit Smith, I shall des- 
pair of making mypelf intelligible. The more that matter 
is looked into the graver it will appear. There is a sig- 
nificance that hangs around it, far deeper than such men as 
John Brown and Gerrit Smith could lend it. Remember 



8 

how the first mtelligence was received lit the North- 
unmistakable sympathy with the marauders, rather than 
their victims. Remember after the conviction, the power- 
ful ors^anization for a rescue— only frustrated by the timely 
precautions of this State. Remember after the execution, 
that minute gucs are fired from the State Arsenal at 
Albany, by permission of the Governor of the powerful 
State of New York — that the proposition to adjourn over 
in the Massachusetts Senate is defeated by only three 
^Qtes— that the press ami pulpit of the North, very gene- 
rally, concur in prockiming him a martyr. Marytr 1 one oaa 
only become a martyr in a cau^e that is just and holy I 
and this man had aimed to subvert the common government 
— to inaugurate a war of races in a portion of the com- 
mon country, and in that war to side with the alien race, 
against those of his own race and color ! ! 

When the South in amazement demands to know if theti 
she has no friends at the North, theanswer is— *'yes, but 
they are too busy just now to attend to your case. Wait 
until certain elections are over, and you shall hear from 
us/' Well our Northern friends have spoken out— hears 
tily and fearlessly,— they leave us no room to doubt their 
fiincerity. Their sympathy is not alone a oonsolation — 
but the South with a just pride, an honest exultation, 
recognises anions her Northern friends, names which the 
whole Nation has learned to love and to venerate. Yet about 
these meetings to express sympathy for the South, there 
are two things to be regretted — one that the sympathy of 
our friends should appear (only in appearance I hope) 
less active than the hatred of our enemies, another that 
our friends should so generally have coupled their assur- 
ances of sympathy, with assurances of protection, thereby 
giving countenance to the error which has been so indus- 
triously propagated, that the South needs protection — is 
unable to protect herself. This was a fatal mistake. 

The Government under which we live, is no longer the 
Oovernment framed by our fathers. That had conserva- 
tive features, which have been eliminated from this. It is 
now the generally received doctrine that, the majority to 
which they remitted the supreme control, was a majority 
of mCTe numbers in which interests have no distinct repre- 
sentation. Our government has relapsed into a pure and 



9 

simple democracy. Power has at length gravitated to the 
great substratum of society, where existence is a life-long 
struggle with want, which has neither leasure, opportunity, 
nor abilities to master groat questions of state — which is 
peculiarly exposed to the arts arid appliances of unprinci- 
pled men. The change has been quite as radical at the 
South, as at the North, but here the resulting inconvenis 
ence has in comparison been so trifling, that we cannot 
comprehend, we cannot conceive, the mighty import of the 
change there. Every four yeirs the splendid p^rize of the 
Presidency is to be competed for, and this change enables 
unscrupulous demagogues to banish, in ever iucreasing 
measure, hones^.y, virtue, and patriotism from the field of 
competition. ^ 

Listen to the pale faced miscreant, Who now fills a seat 
on the floor of the United States Senate, and disgraces the 
State which sent him, and the Nation which tolerates his 
presence there, — listen to his bid for the Presidency. He 
points the shivering multitude, shivering in the cold 
Northern blast, to ever blooming plains that yield for an^ 
nual export, more than two hundred millions of surplus 
— That charming clime, that perennial verdure, is reserved 
for African slaves, to your exclusion ; they toil for a 
handful of nabobs and aristocrats — break the bonds of 
those slaves, and that land is yours. He points them to' 
the census tables in proof that they have, or soon will have, 
the power to do so. And he broaches his theories of a 
higher law, and an irrepressible conflict, as flimsy screens 
for the shrinking conscience, while they bridge over the 
repugnance of human nature, to such atrocious wickedness. 

The bid was truly as glittering as the prize. At the 
word of the tempter a great Northern Sectional party leaps 
into life, based upon principles unfriendly to Southern in- 
stitutions — these infamous theories esablasoned on its 
banners — and Wm. H. Seward its acknowledged head, 
leader, and exponent. The act of John Brown is a strict 
logical sequence to the teachings and doctrines of this 
party. 

There is yet another element of mischief. In the North 
Eastern corner of our territory dwells a peculiar people. A 
glance at their history will aid us in this investigation. 
Gentlemen permit me to say that I have a way of my 



10 

own of reading history — bear with me then while X glance 
at their history as I have read it, or rather perhaps, while I 
comment upon their history after my own fashion. 

Early in the reign of James, I a band of religious en- 
thusiasts fled from England, to avoid the opperation of the 
Act to secure conformity in religious worship, and sought 
an asylum in Holland. Thence they dispatched emissa- 
ries, to examine the creeds and forms of every Protestant 
country of Europe, and having by this means satisfied 
themselves, that they could neither commune nor live in 
peace with any other people of Europe, (or indeed on 
God's earth) they resolved to found a state of their own on 
the new continent, whose institutions should conform to 
their own peculiar model of excellence. That model seems 
to have been the Jewish Theocracy under the Judges. 
The first obstacles which nature and the natives opposed 
to their settlement being overcome, it was found that as 
they could not harmonize with any other people, so neither 
could they live in peace with each other. The reason is 
obvious. Under their system, each congregation forms 
an independent church in itself, entitled to hold all and 
every opinion, on all and every subject. Now the Pilgrims 
(to borrow a phrase of their own) had not yet attained to 
that state of blissful indifi'erence, which in these more 
hopeful times, permits the lambs and the wolves to feed in 
the same pastures, and herd in the same folds — the fanatic 
Cheever, the demagogue Beecher, the infidel Parker, and 
modified Arians, ard rigid Calvinists, to worship in adjoin- 
ing edifices, and to unite in such good works as the petition 
of the three thousand under Mr. Pierces administration 
or the pious collections taken up in their churches, to pur- 
chase the Sharp's Rifles used in Kansas, and ab Harper's 
Ferry. So, dissensions breaking out, the Pilgrims, as was 
natural, beguiled the tedium of a wilderness life by, whip- 
ping, persecuting, and banishing each other. These, and 
similar diversions led to the formation of other settlements, 
offshoots, or colonies as it were, of the parent state. They 
all languished and would perhaps have been abandoned, 
if this stiff backed people could have lived with any other 
people, and excepting that the commotions of the mother 
country Drought them timely resinforcements. The tivil 
war in Eugland recruited these colonies with a few zealots 



11 

like themselves doubtless, but also in very large proportion 
with men of a wholly different stamp. Advocates cf the 
gjreat principles of civil liberty — firm, wise, consistent — 
they were the very reverse of the narrow-minded bigots 
among whom their lot was hereafter to be cast. Motives 
of personal interest, combined with religious and political 
considerations; from time to time gave further accessions 
to their numbers — but in general the bigots and zealots 
retained control, until an event, which in its results drove 
them from power, gave to these colonies a now aspect 
social and political, and changed the whole current of their 
history. 

That the peculiar tendancy to religious phrensy, or the 
vein of insanity, which marked the crack-brained founders 
of these colonies was transmitted to their posterity, is pro- 
ven by the event to which I must now allude. In a time 
of profound tranquility a groundless and unaccountable 
alarm seized on the public mind. An oppressive presen- 
timent of impending evil, vague, shape-less, and inevitas 
ble, chilled the blood of this strange people-- demoniac rage 
supervened, and curdled into deeds of blood. The hair 
bristling with supernatural horror, the eye gkaming with 
a wild, fierce, malignant light, they sought out as victims 
for slaughter, those members of the community who of all 
others, have the strongest claim upon the gratitude, and 
protection of a right-minded people. For strange as it 
may seem — far transcending t^e limits of human credu- 
lity were not the facts avouched beyond the possibility 
of cavil — more extravagantly, grotesquely, fantastically 
absurd, than the antics of any ring-tailed ape of the Trop- 
ical forest — the exciting cause of the paroxysm was a dread 
of elderly females ! ! they had taken up the notion that 
they were possessed with devils— that they were wtiches. 
It ended as suddenly as it began. Dismayed at the 
pitiless massacre, remorse, reflection, reaction, ensued — the 
zealots lost theii influence and the men of sense came into 
power. Under their auspices New England starts on a 
new and glorious career — it is now that her name becomes 
associated, for once and forever, with the e;reat cause of 
civil liberty, the struggle for human rights ^that she 
endows her country with those warriors and sages who 
figure so woithily by the side of Washington. 



12 

But right-minded men have never been entirely secure 
in power in New England — the madmen, it is true, had 
been shut up in the churches^ but this did not prevent 
them from howling their imprecations from the pulpit, and 
casting their fire brands from the doors and windows. In- 
deed there is less reason to wonder atiheir present activity 
in mischief, than for thankfulness that the confiagration 
has been so long delayed. At length, unhappily for them- 
selves and the nation, a quarrel arose about the policy of 
fostering domestic manafactures. It was founded on 
divergent interests, and became chronic. Excitement grew 
apace, and the fanatical element again obtained the ascen- 
dancy. Xhey came forth from their long confinement rag- 
ing demoniacs — they abjured the religion of love, which 
some among them asserted to have outlived the objects of 
its iustitution, and in its place jthey set up the religion of 
hate. Mormonism appears, in which their original appre- 
ciation of the Jewish Theocracy is revived, but in the 
interval it has gained a step in advance, in the negation 
of Christ, and the restoration of the relations of the sexes 
to Jfche footing in which- they stood under the older dispen- 
sation. Co-eval with Mormonism, was the birth of Abo- 
lition, which denounces the written compact of ihe Union, 
as a league with death, and a covenant with hell — which 
rejects the Bible as a proslavery Bible, and God as a pro- 
slavery God. One curious phenomenon which they present 
must not pass unnoticed, though its elucidation I will 
leave to others. They have reversed the signification of 
some of the commonest words and phrases of the lan- 
guage. Thus ^'love'' means -^hate,'' "duty" "theft," 
"martyr" "traitor" or "murderer,"by "religious obliga- 
tion" or "duty to God," they mean "disregard of a solemn 
oath of allegiance," and philanthropy" is the term by 
which they express the insane and diabolical hatred which 
iliey cherish, for that timid and inoffensive race which 
God has placed under our guardianship. Their energy is 
frightful. An army of teachers, preachers, lecturers and 
emissaries of every hue and sex incessantly perambulates 
the country — but their chief assaults are on the schools and 
educational establishments ; for it is there that youth first 
learns to know and be proud of the greatness of his coun^ 
try, and there only the feeling can be effectually extirpa- 



IS 

ted. The characteristic of this species of mania is the 
extraordinary keenness of its scent for slaughter. Hiss 
tory proves it capable of following this scent, with un- 
wearied perseverance, throug hmany successive generations 
— such is its nature. 

See this army in battle array, with heresy and blasphemy 
written on its banners, a motley crew, more grotesque than 
the throng of Faquirs which rushed on the seried ranks 
of Aurungzebe. See the warlike chieftain on the left — 
him of the haughty crest — that is Free Love, with emo- 
tional sympathy, and passional attraction jargon. See that 
stately warrior on the right, whose nodding plumes 
appear to shake the solid earth — that is Spiritualism ! 
mouthing an nnintelligible gibberish about spirits, and 
mediums, and white and blue rays — which is become pos- 
sible, because the pillory, which was a practical institution 
in the days of Lord Mansfield, has fallen into desuetude. 
See the raging virago of the centre and the van — her eyes 
gleaming with the lurid fires of insanity, her visage dis- 
torted by the paroxysms of impotent hate — her hair streams 
in the gale, her polished cuirass, and burnished buckler 
flash back the sun in defiance — that is the peculiar 
institution of New England — a strong minded woman. 
Elsewhere there are learned scientific and literary ladies — 
occasionally a blue stocking — the beldams of the Parisian 
mob of the first Kevolution are undoubtedly congeners — 
but your strong minded woman of the Bloomer type, of the 
Abby Kelly, Lucretia Mott, or Susan Anthony species, 
has not been d'scovercd, that I am aware of, without the 
pale of New England society. These are the Sun, and 
Moon, and Planets of the galaxy — but behind them in the 
ranks, stars of the first magnitude are shining, which but 
that their inefi'ectual fires pale in the light of larger lumina- 
ries, would in themselves suffice to light a world with scorn 
and derision — co^ercive temperance men, antimasons, mil- 
lenarians, trancendentalists. 

The ostensible ptetext of the present outbreak is (were 
that possible) as absurd as the former. They have taken 
up the notion, that the South, which is the minority, 
designs to force on the North, which is the majority, her 
system of African slavery — hence, to arrest so dire a ca- 
lamity, theft, murder, arson, civil and servile war, are not 



14 

alone justifiable, but ia the highest degree commendable 
in the sight of God. Or to give them the benefit of i\Jr. 
Seward's exposition — if free labor does not crush out slave 
labor, slave labor will crush out free labor, and the efi'ort 
to surmount this profound proposition has crazed their 
feeble brains. 

When the traveler Gulliver was carried before the King 
of the Brobdinags, he relates, that the etiquette of the 
court was for a moment broken up. His majesty, his 
daughter, and their attendants, crowded around him in 
mute wonder at this diminutive specimen of their race. 
While they were yet lost in profound astonishment, a 
female monkey, mistaking him doubtless for a juvenile 
sample of her own kind, glided unnoticed among them, 
snatched up the little man, and fled with him to the roof 
of the Palace. There, while the king, the princess, her 
ladies, and the courtiers, dare not interfere lest she should 
let him fall, the monkey crams his mouth with the con- 
tents of the pouch under her cheek. Gulliver confesses 
that under the circumstances he was obliged to submit, 
but the next time she tried it, he drew his sword and stood 
on his defence. Will the South be less valiant than was 
Gulliver the traveler, when it is sought to defile her with 
the impure and filthy ribaldry, and blasphemous dogmas 
of these madmen ! 

The political power of this nation is now vested in the 
great masses of the North. These masses already imi)ued 
with opinions unfriendly or hostile to the institutions of 
the South, are assailed at once by an army of demagogues 
and an army of fanatics — with lying misrepresentations 
of the condition and treatment of our slaves-— perverted 
scraps of Holy Writ — flimsey theories of religion and mo- 
rality — nsidious appeals to the passions, interests, fears 
or wants. Already they are arrayed into that sectional 
party I have described, which claims to be, and which 
may be, a numerical majority of the nation. See the 
mighty host, whose line of battle stretches over more 
than a thousand miles ; listen to the wail of Southern men 
robbed, and ruthlessly murdered on the plains of Kansas ; 
whence this odor of blood that reeks in the atmosphere of 
Virginia ! What is the interpretation that will inevitably 
be given, to propositions of compromise coming from the 



15 

weaker party, against whom this foraiidable array is dis 
rected ? What are the chances that our Northern friends 
will be able to stay, and turn back this headlong torrent ? 
Estimate if you can the influence which such men as Eve- 
rett and Gushing, are likely to have in a State, which 
denies a nich in the Halls of its State House to the statue 
of Daniel Webster ! ! But the heart of the great North 
once beat true to the Constittion and the Union ! how long 
will it be safe to trust, that that feeling can withstand the 
attacks systematically made upon it? Have we not too 
much reason to deem that feeling enfeebled, if not wholly 
reversed? There is a terrible significance about this 
John Brown affair! 

The position of the South is defensive, not aggressive. 
She does not desire, she may be driven to disunion. Her 
love for this fairest fabric of Government yet reared by 
human hands, can only be extinguished by perverting it 
into an instrument of oppression. How long can that love 
be expected to withstand the assaults of these madmen ? 
There is a fatal significance about this John Brown affair ! 

But the fate of this'Union does not rest with the South 
— it rests with the great Northern masses. I should 
have no distrust of the American people if this question 
could be fairly brought before them, but that by the means 
at present proposed, is simply impossible. Is it then wise 
— is it consistent with the great principle of self-preserva- 
tion, to ignore the portents of the storm — to permit our- 
selves to be lulled into false security by another patched 
up compromise ? No, Fellow Citizens believe mc ! the 
part ot true wisdom is to look this danger full in the face 
— to bring this matter to an issue, and to obtain satis-^ 
factory security for our equality and our rights under this 
Government or — perish the Union ! 

If we would gather a lesson from the example of Wash- 
ington, let us remember that he regarded the unjust policy 
of the parent State, as an attempt to subjugate his country 
under the forms of law, and resisted. To permit this Gos 
vernment to be controled by the great Northern Sectional 
Party, and administered in accordance with its principles 
- -what would that be but subjugation under legal forms ? 

But Fellow Citizens ! if heavy gloom — mournful and 
impenetrable— bangs over the future of our National Govs 



16 

eminent, there is yet a spot to which the heart of the patriot 
may turn for consolation, — there is yet a Shrine at which 
his love-offerings may be laid. Come with me to the banks 
of that noblest of our rivers, that veins and fertilizes the 
centre of the State. Not on the borders of the Haven 
at its mouth, where the navies of th3 world might ride in 
security ; nor in that grand Ampetheatre among the 
mountains, where the springs, and rivolets, and torrents 
in conclave, decree its birth — but come with me to where 
its sparkling waters are hastening over a rocky bed, to their 
marriage with the tide— where the rugged hills have as- 
sumed their softest outlines, and crowned with groves, 
and gay with flowers and verdure, approsch in slopes of a 
placid beauty, a tranquil grace, which only the hand of 
Omnipotence can bestow ! 

But we must turn from all this loveliness to gaze on 
yonder fane. There dwells the Nationality of Virginia. 
It is Virginia herself, enthroned, majestic— yet lovely in 
the last rays of the sunset. Adorned with stately columns, 
robed in snowy drapery, whose whiteness is the purity, the 
heroism, the devotion, of her sons,and of her daughters ! 
Great Shade ! Mother of Washington ! at thy beck war- 
riors, and statesmen shall start from thy soil, and genius to 
herald thy renown ! ! And the hum of multitudes arises 
from the city of jasper, and of gold, that clings to her feet, 
and the waters flowing, flowing, flowing, leaping, laugh- 
ing, flashing, foaming in rocky channels, or murmuring 
among the willow-fringed Islands — ever murmur that new 
song which none but the elect can learn. And now 

The night leaws gently from 
The slowly fading West, 

Wearing a single silver star 
Upon her shadowy breast — 

and the vision lades from view. It fades from the sight, 
Fellow Citizens, but not let me trust from the heart. In 
the innermost recesses — in the profoundest depths of the 
heart that image let me trust is indellibly stamped 
There in its centre * ^ * * * * 
Burns the slo^' flame eternal but unseen 
which in the hour of trial, shall nerve her children to do 
and to dare, all that the interest, the honor, the glory of 
that good Mother, may demand of thenKU f9 g » 







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